Us. Hands Nicaragua
1986 1986-05Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 2 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 2
• 123 : 2 31 Americans, President Reagan 51 of the United Nations grounds for the air strikes.
Article 51 provides the right of self-defense to any nation under actual attack. But Libya was not attacking the United States, so the administration simply stretched the letter of the law and justified its aggression on the basis of a possible future attack.
By this logic, as Cockburn observed in his Journal article, "the Nicaraguan govern -ment, very reasonably determining that the United States is planning an attack on its territory, has the right to bomb Washing -ton."
The latest reports from Washington indicate that the U.S. bombing attack was meant to coincide with an internal army uprising against Qaddafi by officers linked to the CIA. One administration insider also admitted that the United States had hoped to kill Qaddafi in the bombing attack.
In light of the fact that the attacks against Libya were part of a calculated, step-by-step U.S. provocation, a question could be raised: Did the CIA, which has a well-documented history of engaging in covert dirty tricks, plant the bomb in Berlin to provide the pretext to attack Libya? Some long-time CIA observers have cited Article Charter as